


Strawberries

by Bofursunboundbraids



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Happy Husbands, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Strawberries, remembering deceased parent, retire to the Shire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-17 01:17:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11840949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofursunboundbraids/pseuds/Bofursunboundbraids
Summary: Bilbo wakes one summer morning, the memory of his mother's strawberry cupcakes in his nose. He's keen to make them, but will the day prove too hot (and his husband too distracting)?This is my submission for the Bagginshield Summer Surprise!My prompt was, "I know that strawberry cupcakes would be delicious, but it’s WAY too hot to bake now." from Bilbo's POV. Which I managed, for the most part. ;D





	Strawberries

**Author's Note:**

> I want to send a big shout of gratitude to aquilea-of-the-mountain for arranging this awesome challenge over on tumblr...Thank you!!! 
> 
> One of the funniest parts about writing this is that I wrote most of it during what was the longest, hottest heat wave I've experienced in 12 years of living in the Pacific Nothwest, so it was never difficult trying to figure out what the lads would do. This is just a bit a lads-in-love fluff, so I hope you enjoy it!

Bilbo inhaled, filling his whole body with the glorious scent. A scent from long ago.

“Mum?”

He sat up in bed, causing Thorin to stir beside him. No, mum wasn't there. She couldn't be. He had lost her years earlier. But the scent lingered in his mind, even if it was gone from his nose.

It must've been a dream.

He inhaled again, trying to capture that scent. He could smell the summer morning, wafting through the open bedroom window, that sweet, aromatic blend of the sun baked grasses on the hills and in the meadows swirling amongst the heady fragrance of the roses, jasmine, and lilacs blooming in his own garden, topped with the faint touch of salt from the early morning mist that had made its way so far inland from the coast.

He took another breath.

Ahhh…now this time his olfactories were treated to the spicy musk of skin, scarred and tattooed, that contained the heart and soul of the one he loved. Bilbo tenderly lifted a lock of long, sterling silver hair off Thorin's cheek. A sleepy lid opened to reveal a sapphire inside. Eye corners crinkled right along with the smile that spread on the handsome face.

“Strawberries.” Bilbo said softly before sliding back down and pressing a kiss to his husband’s bristly, sleep-dry lips.

Thorin chuckled as he reached his hand out, under the covers, finding himself a handful of bare, plump flesh. “Here’s my strawberry.” He said, squeezing gently.

Bilbo giggled, Thorin’s hand tickling his bottom. “Oh, _you_. Come now, I mean it. Can't you smell it?”

Thorin took a deep breath as he stretched out his thick limbs, his feet tangling with Bilbo’s. “Mmmm…strawberries.”

“And it’s not just strawberries, but the…what are you… _ahhhh_ …that’s nice.” Bilbo slid his hands into wild, wavy hair as Thorin hovered over him, snugging between his legs, lips nuzzling the downy gold fuzz on his chest, slowly moving down to his belly. “It smells like the cupcakes mum would make when I was a faunt. Have you ever had a strawberry cupcake?”

Thorin only shook his head before disappearing under the sheets and, for a little while at least, Bilbo forgot all about strawberries.

+++

The basket was plopped on the kitchen table before a sweaty body dropped into a chair. The morning had gone from warm to hot at a rapid rate, and what had begun as a pleasant walk down the lane to Hobbiton’s market, had ended in an uncomfortable slog back up the hill. Bilbo chuckled to himself, thinking how soft he’d become in the year since he and Thorin had returned to the Shire to live their lives, together, in peace. After traipsing across Middle-earth, facing a multitude of dangers and uncomfortable situations, one would think a body could endure a brisk walk to the market and back.

“Oh, what I must suffer for strawberries!” Bilbo lamented melodramatically to Thorin as he shucked his summer-weight linen jacket. A glass of water, pulled cool from the tap, was placed in his hand, and a wet cloth pressed to his brow.

“Do you think you got enough?” Thorin asked, peering into a basket that was near to overflowing.

“Perhaps.” Bilbo gulped the water down, some of it spilling out the sides of his mouth to roll down his chin. “But probably not. One can never have too much when it comes to strawberries.” He dabbed at his face with the cloth as he watched Thorin unload the market treasures from the basket. Two pound’s weight in ruby red strawberries was the first to come out.

“Are these Mistress Hornblower’s honey buns?”

“Mmmm…as well as her raspberry tart.” Bilbo knew well his husband’s fondness for raspberry tart and was rewarded with a delighted “Yes!” and a kiss on the cheek.

“It’s a shame no one had your cupcakes, love, already made.” Thorin pulled out an earthenware jug full of milk, effectively emptying the basket.

Bilbo shook his head, “No, no, they must be mum’s. Her’s were the very best, the only ones that will do. I know I must have the recipe somewhere. In one of her cookbooks, most likely. You'll see what I mean, just you wait.” And, laying the quickly drying cloth on the table, he stood and walked to the sink to open the window above it.

The breeze that blew in was warm, very warm, almost hot. This was unusual considering their place on the hill, which was prime for catching cooler breezes on warm summer days. It was going to be a hot one and Bilbo was glad he went to the market as early as he did. After a quick, sweet session of expressing their love for one another, Bilbo had left Thorin, satiated and tangled in the bedclothes, to quickly dress and hie it down to the market, his desire to share the joy of his mother’s strawberry cupcakes with his lover increasing with every passing minute.

Oh, but it was so _hot_.

Bilbo looked from the cloth sack that now lay on its side on the table, spilling strawberries out of its top, to the shelf that held his mother’s old cookbooks, to the still cool oven. A troubling equation was beginning to form in his mind. It began with the energy required to wash and slice the berries, the time it would take to find the recipe, and the heat that would be generated by the oven once he lit the fire. He kept arriving at the same outcome: one hot, sweaty, tired hobbit.

But… _cupcakes_.

“Oh, Thorin…wait…” He sputtered when he noticed his husband cutting himself a generous slice of the tart. He was rewarded with a look of wide-eyed innocence, the wedge of tart mere inches from the mouth that desired it. He waved his hand, chuckling. “Enjoy it, my love.” Far be it for him to tell Thorin the tart was meant for dessert. If Bilbo had learned anything about the dwarf he had fallen in love with, it was he had a sweet tooth that was truly remarkable, even by hobbit standards. Thorin loved his tarts and pies, cakes and cookies, and raspberry anything was his favorite. The softening of his belly, since arriving in the Shire, was proof enough. Watching Thorin take his first bite, his pleasure conveyed so purely and perfectly by his face, Bilbo received a flash back to a much earlier time, a memory of his mum…

“She stood right where you are.”

“Hmmm?” Thorin looked up, his mouth full, lips smeared purple with raspberry.

“My mum. She used to stand where you are, when she made her cupcakes.”

“Did she?”

“Mmmm…she did. She’d have her big bowl out, the one with the daisies painted all along the rim. The ingredients would be all laid out here.” Bilbo stood up and surveyed the table; honey buns and tarts that some other hobbit woman made, milk which needed to get to the ice box before it spoiled in the heat, and berries, spilling out of the bag and shining like the gems that they were. He picked up the milk jug and carried it to the insulated ice box in the corner. “The strawberries would be washed and sliced. It was all she could do to keep my little hands out of the bowl.” Returning to the table, he picked up a berry, flicked a speck of dirt off its pretty red skin, and bit it off at the stem. The flavor was that perfect combination of sweet and tart, ripened in the sun. Perhaps, a naughty voice in his head suggested, it would be best to take his strawberries and his dwarf and enjoy them both while avoiding the heat of the day in the cool of their bedroom. With no clothes on…

“And how does a hobbit mum keep her bairn from eating up all the goods?” Thorin asked, brushing crumbs off his shirt.

“She sends him outside to play, is what she does.” Noticing a trickle of sweat that came cascading down from Thorin’s temple, Bilbo left the kitchen to fetch a leather tie from a box in the sitting room and quickly returned. “Sit, love.” He gently commanded and proceeded to braid Thorin's thick, heavy hair, which was a point of pride for all dwarves, and even more so for a son of Durin. But Bilbo deemed it uncomfortable whenever the temperature rose and despite Thorin’s assurances that he felt no discomfort, Bilbo insisted on braiding it in one long queue, his fingers separating and twisting the silky waves until it fell like a strong rope down Thorin’s back. Now, that was better! He kissed an exposed temple and tasted salt on his lips. Perhaps the bedroom was the best place to spend the day.

“And a good lad does what his mummy tells him to.” Thorin took his hobbit by the hand and pulled him closer, settling him sideways on his broad lap.

“Well of course.” Bilbo kissed a whiskered cheek, appreciating the feel of the strong body beneath him. “Of course! She would kneel down, until we were eye-to-eye, and she would take my hands in hers. ‘Fetch me a fairy’s wand, my sweet petunia’ she’d say. ‘The cupcakes won't rise properly without it’. And off I’d run, down the hill, past all of the other faunts, most of whom were quite certain I had a screw loose…”

“Even then?” Thorin had come to learn that his beloved Master Baggins had something of a reputation in his homeland. It all had something to do with running off after a wild-looking band of unsavory dwarfs, in search of adventure or some otherwise un-hobbitlike affair, and returning, over a year later, with one of those dwarfs in tow, claiming he was his husband, what foolish nonsense! And Baggins used to be such a respectable name. Heads still shook for the shame of it all. He slid a hand between his hobbit’s cushioned thighs.

“Yes,” Bilbo laughed, proud of the reputation he had cultivated purely by staying true to himself. “It didn't matter to me. It never mattered. Mum needed a fairy’s wand so a fairy’s wand she would receive.”

“And where does a wee one find so great a treasure?”

“In the meadow, or down by the creek’s edge. I’d find an interesting bit of twig, wrapped in moss or lichen, and run home, proud of my discovery. I’d concoct a story about how I had had to win the fairy’s appreciation and their wand was my reward. Mum would always make big over it, every time. And she kept them, right there on that shelf.”

Thorin turned to look, but there were no bits of twig there. He couldn't remember ever seeing twigs in Bag End.

“They're gone.” He said.

“Mmmm hmmm…” Bilbo nodded, sadness seeping in to his blood and filling his belly. He slid off of Thorn’s lap and went to the shelf that had held the dear little collection. Now it only held his mother’s cookbooks and a week’s worth of dust.

“You didn't keep…”

“No. No I didn't.” Bilbo turned around, a forced, sad smile on his face. “Childish things, I thought they were. Once mum was gone, I figured it was time they went as well.”

“That's a shame.”

“You're right. I dearly wish I still had them.” And he did. He wished he could go back to his earlier self, the self that had just lost his mother and, in his grief, had forced himself to be that oh-so-respectable Baggins under-the-hill. What a speaking to he’d give himself! What a fool he had been. Thank goodness that time had been brief and was well over.

Thorin got out of his chair and went to Bilbo, cupping his round, sweet face in his hands. “Perhaps there are more fairy wands to find.” He kissed him.

“Well of course there are.” Bilbo took the large, thick hands in his and placed a kiss on each set of knuckles. “And I know the precise way to charm them away from their owners.”

“I have no doubt of that. It would have to be a cold, dead heart that could not lose itself to your charms.”

Bilbo dropped Thorin’s hands, blushing. “Whatever are you talking about?”

“You think mine was the only heart you won during our travels?”

The blush spread down Bilbo’s neck and the tips of his ears burned. “No…I…I mean…it was…you were the only…”

“You think I didn't notice the way they looked at you; Fili, Balin, Dwalin…”

“What? Dwalin? Are you mad? I half-expected him to push me off a cliff most of the time, intimidating bugger. How do you know?”

“I know because he _told_ me. They were sweet on you, Bilbo, all of them. And that Bofur…he adored you, I have no doubt. I was so certain you would chose him. Such a decent soul, worthy of you. I was ready to fight him, you know.”

Bilbo leaned back against the table, this news tangling his poor brain.“You wouldn't have!”

“No. You're right. I would've given my blessings, wished you both a long and happy life, and hated his guts until my dying day.”

“That never would've happened, Bofur and I.”

Thorin stood in front of his hobbit, toe-to-toe. “No?”

“No. Because I went and fell in love with a rude, ill-tempered, bore of a dwarf the moment I laid eyes on him.” Bilbo looked up, but only as high as the open collar of Thorin’s shirt and the dark hairs the peaked out from underneath. A tantalizing tease of a view. A chuckle made him look higher.

“No you didn't.” Thorin moved closer, pressing himself against Bilbo who had no doubt where his dwarf was trying to lead them.

“Yes I…well, alright it may have been… _mmmm_ …lust at first sight, but the love was quick to follow.” Bilbo was finding the ability to make words difficult as he was pressed back into the table. Thorin’s body thick and heavy against him. Reaching over, he plucked a strawberry out of the bag and brushed it against Thorin’s lips until his lover took a bite out of it.

“Mmm…” Thorin swallowed before nuzzling Bilbo’s face with the tip of his nose, an arm wrapping around that precious body. “I was so cold to you.”

Bilbo slid a hand up Thorin’s chest and around his neck. “I have never admitted to intelligence, now, have I?”

Thorin gave a quick look to the table they were leaning against, a wolfish grin decorating his face. “Look at where we are.” He said in nothing more than a deep whisper. “Do you remember?”

Of course Bilbo remembered. How could he forget that particular afternoon, just a couple of weeks after returning with his husband to the Shire, to reclaim Bag End from some grasping relatives. The table, the one his father had built for his mother, had just been returned to its rightful spot in the kitchen and Bilbo had been keen to bake up a cake. But what had begun with a bowl of sweet cream batter had ended with Thorin’s trousers down around his ankles and Bilbo’s feet up in the air. How they avoided breaking any of the crockery was still a mystery to them both.

“I remember.” Bilbo bit his bottom lip, nodding. “Have I ever told you I was conceived on this very table?”

“Mmmm… You Bagginses have randiness in your blood.”

“Ahhh…but it was Mummy who instigated it.”

Thorin chuckled. “Tooks.”

“It runs in the family. That's why there are so many of us.”

“Imagine if we could conceive…”

Bilbo honked out a laugh. “I’m afraid Bag End would quickly grow too small."

Thorin twirled a lock of Bilbo’s hair around one of his thick fingers. “I’ve been thinking that a child’s voice would ring merrily in this home. A child bearing your pretty likeness.”

“Or yours. You're right, it would be merry. Perhaps by some miracle of fate…” Bilbo’s eyes met Thorin’s and, together, they burst out in laughter. This talk was nonsense, of course. A child of their own would indeed require a miracle.

Thorin stepped back in order to give Bilbo space. “What say you, my succulent love, to taking your strawberries, and a bottle of fizzy wine, and going up, under the tree?”

“I say yes to that,” Bilbo agreed, pushing himself off the table. “Shall we search for fairy wands?”

“It's an entirely different sort of wand I’m interested in finding.”

“Oh?” Bilbo looked up, quickly, from gathering the strawberries that had rolled out of the sack. “Yes.” His grin curled deliciously in the corners of his mouth. “Yes of course. That's a splendid idea, my darling. Let me wash these and we’ll be off.”

The day was not going to be one for strawberry cupcakes, after all, and Bilbo decided that that was quite all right because, lets face it, it was too bloody hot to bake. He washed up the strawberries while Thorin gathered all they would need, which was not much more than a blanket and that bottle of fizzy wine, and together they left the smial by a back tunnel which opened onto the backside of their little hill, and from there a path led up to a low spot under the great oak that crowned their home, a spot where they would be undetected by anyone who might come by on the lane below. There, they laid out the blanket, and then themselves. They whiled away the hours eating strawberries and drinking fizzy wine straight from the bottle. The wine tickled their noses as well as other parts of the anatomy, and it wasn't long before they were taking great pleasure in each other. Slow and quiet, they made love under the oak until satisfied and spent. Then they slept, naked to the heavens and the robins in the tree, safe in a place known only to them, the rest of the world far, far below.

When Thorin woke from his nap and opened his eyes, he found green ones looking back at him, the most beautiful he’d ever seen. He laid his hand on Bilbo’s chest, feeling the powerful organ that beat within.

“I love you, Bilbo Baggins” He said, leaning in and placing a kiss on his sleepy-faced hobbit’s forehead.

“I love you, Thorin, king under the hill.” Bilbo teased his lover with the title he had bestowed upon him when they had first returned back from their adventures in the east.

“More than strawberries?” Thorin plucked the last of the berries out of the bowl and brushed it against Bilbo’s lips. Those lips parted and Bilbo took it into his mouth. He chewed slowly and swallowed, his eyes never leaving Thorin’s.

“Yes.” He said, moving closer for a kiss. “Even more than strawberries.”


End file.
